I think I fell in love with her that day and that love has remained. I don’t want you to think this is a story about how I have come to hate the thing Rose has become, because I love her still, despite the changes. One could argue it’s because of the changes that I feel this way, but I prefer to believe it’s the same emotion that has existed between us for ten years.
After college, Rose found work with a pharmaceutical company interested in her focus on gene therapy for infertility, a way to fix broken plumbing, Rose liked to say. I stayed in academia, completing my doctorate and teaching while I pursued my own work. Most of what I did was repackaging others’ research, looking for connections perhaps they hadn’t made. Looking back, I wish I had done something more, and now I can barely remember any of the papers I’ve published.
That Tuesday when it all began, it seemed innocuous enough. Rose came home early, which was unusual. I was still at home, the Spring semester yet to begin, and I sat with her on the overstuffed sofa in the den while she told me about the accident. Her hair was shorter than in college, but I still enjoyed running my fingers through it while she leaned against me and told me about the research. I wish I could remember it all, but I can recall the essential parts.
Rose worked with a team who used cells, maybe mitochondria, I think, to fill in gaps and flip switches along the human genome to reverse infertility. Restorative gene therapy. Actual genetic manipulation to grow and shrink parts of the human body that could get in the way of conception. I want to tell you more about it, but all I can think of is that DNA cartoon from Jurassic Park, and then I start giggling because I can’t watch enough cartoons lately. They’re so funny to me, and there’s one where there’s a duck and he-
Sorry, the effects of the virus again. I get distracted so easily and I wouldn’t be able to write this if Rose were here. She’s different, now. She has this allure.
Back to Tuesday. Right. Rose is in my lap and I’m running my fingers through her delicious soft hair and she’s telling me all about what happened. It was overconfidence, she said. Despite working around highly communicable materials, everyone in the lab, Rose said, had become lax. Work around fire enough and you forget how hot it burns, I suppose. In this case, Rose was transferring some of the test material to a cooler for storage and dropped the beaker. It wouldn’t have been an issue under normal circumstances but, as I said, the fire seemed tame. The beaker crashed to the floor, sending minuscule shards of glass into Rose’s foot, piercing the flesh between the straps of her inefficient, open-toed shoes.
She came home after a short debriefing, along with several vials of a reversing agent should she express any unusual symptoms. The one thing no one accounted for was how the symptoms themselves could cause the spread of the virus. But I’m getting an eensie bit ahead of myself.
She said she felt stupid, blamed herself for the accident, of course. Rose was never one to shirk responsibility. After a few minutes of talking and cuddling, Rose told me she wanted a long shower and a night of rest, maybe marathon something from Netflix until she fell asleep, she said. I told her I had work yet to do, lesson plans for the coming semester, and I watched her climb the stairs to the master bedroom.
At the time, I thought she was lucky. The work she did wasn’t focused on virulent strains of Ebola or anything, just helping people have a baby. The idea that she could be ground zero for some worldwide pathogen would have been laughable. Never underestimate the power of nature, I guess. What they had concocted in the lab, my wife and her team, was always intended to help. I suppose it has, in some ways. Like this aching arousal I can barely think past, it’s hard to deny the earthshaking orgasms that it brings.
Rose. Sorry. I start thinking about orgasms and I’m lost. They are that powerful. Mind-numbing, life-erasing explosions that reduce you to quivering heaps of flesh, resting only long enough to cum again.
She was fine that night, nothing out of the ordinary, and she was even able to joke about how the accident could have given her superpowers or something more fun than an afternoon off work. It wasn’t until the following morning, Wednesday, that I noticed something off.
She woke with me, or I woke with her. All I know is that from the moment she opened her eyes and met mine, she was all over me. It was unusual for Rose to be so affectionate in the morning, but not unheard of, and I found myself hard as a rock and slipping inside her, Rose’s legs wrapped around mine.
I think that was the first time I noticed the smell. It’s hard to describe, especially now that my vocabulary has started to vanish. It’s musky and natural, the smell of someone’s sweat, but sweet, too, like how one might smell if they ran a marathon and were immediately dipped into cotton candy. It’s intoxicating, and I found my mouth at her neck, licking and kissing, finding the taste of her skin more deliriously addictive than I ever had before.
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